This invention relates to schemes for controlling the quality of air inside buildings.
A great many buildings have their air intake systems located proximal to pollution sources such as emergency generators, delivery truck loading docks, helicopters, buses and aircraft. The quality of the outside air delivered to buildings can be compromised by the presence of these combustion sources.
Excursions in the air quality delivered to a building can have an adverse effect on its occupants. The presence of diesel, or other fossil fuel, combustion by-products can cause fairly serious physiological symptoms including watery eyes, irritation of mucous membranes, irritation of respiratory tracts, and drowsiness. One of the constituents of diesel exhaust is formaldehyde which has long been recognized as a pollutant that can adversely effect human health.
Sorbent-based filters utilize adsorbent particles (e.g., activated charcoal) impregnated with some sort of chemical (e.g., potassium permanganate, or some other oxidant, or amine), have been employed to control the concentrations of combustion by-products in air drawn into a building. Typically these filters consist of sorbent that is contained in either a media structure or a tray system. These filters are mounted in the air handling system of a building to remove gas-phase pollutants by means of adsorption/condensation and chemisorption. Typically, these filters are quite expensive relative to air filters normally employed in building air systems.